FDR is knocked down a few steps because he had a few nutty ideas. The internment camps. Un-constitutional. Court-packing. Un-constitutional. These are serious knocks on the guy's record.

As for JFK, madcat033 yes, he probably made that list because he was shot and killed. A good number of people think we, as a country, are on the wrong track after his death and wonder what the world would be like had he lived. Nobody is saying, what if, from a 2nd Carter or a 2nd GHW Bush term. His death was also used, politically, to pass the civil rights act, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the last 50 years.

I don't have much to add that hasn't been added before me by smarter people (though I agree Washington was the greatest president we had, and that you cannot compare presidents across centuries very easily), I have but 1 question to ask:

Is madtowner11 a bot? The only thing I ever see him add in a post is crap like "George W. Bush is the worst. president. ever." If the crux of your argument is paraphrasing the comic book guy, go home. So many people in this thread are doing their damndest, either way, to put forth their most admired presidents, and the best you can do is "OMFG GEROGE W IS TEH SUXOR!!!!LOLLERPOP!!!!" The only thing I can fathom is that he is actually some kind of program that installs the same thing in any thread that has Bush mentioned more than a couple times.

*pantpantpant*

Sorry folks, but that gets my goat.

For what it is worth, though, looking back over the 20th century, here is my list:

CanSomeonePleaseKilltheChristmasShoes It's easy to point fingers at the monsters of the past, and act superior, but FDR kidnapped American boys against their will, and sent them abroad/killed them. in search of monsters to destroy.

WTF are you talking about? The Japanese attacked us first in WWII. That's what really got us involved. Hitler was allied with them. Nevermind the fact that it was morally reprehensible that we hadn't gotten involved more with the war before that. Hitler slaughtered millions and likely would have taken over most of the European mainland, Britain, and more if we hadn't joined the war. You cannot possibly be stupid enough to think FDR was wrong to fight. Now once the fighting was joined, the draft was necessary. It was total war. Our military manpower was no ways near sufficient without a draft.

Trinilos The south seceded from the union in a completely unaggressive way due to their incredibly underpowered position in the government (the north could basically tell the south to do whatever the north wanted it to do.

Underpowered? Let's see... they still got 2 senators per state. They still got representation according to their population. But they didn't get more power than they deserved, so that gives them a right to secede? I think not.

Closed off borders, made life very difficult for southern farmers, even the ones who treated their slaves as workers with wages and proper housing.

What, both of them? Wages and proper housing, my ass... if such things existed at all, they were certainly the exception to the rule of treating blacks as property. Even after the Civil War, as soon as the Union soldiers went home following Reconstruction, the majority in the South went back to abusing blacks as much as they could. Lynchings, ridiculous voting literacy tests with questions like "how high is high?", segregation, and more from the infamous Jim Crow... the majority of these people were racist sons of a biatches. Whether the war was really about slavery or not, it certainly became an issue and I for one am glad we defeated them and set in motion the changes needed to abolish slavery and segregation. A hundred years later many of these backwards ass farks in the South still thought it was okay to treat an entire race like shiat.

Thankfully 40 years since the '65 voting rights act, most Southerners have left the racism of the past behind. Some remain... some older people that cling to their ignorant hatred and some of their children who's minds have been poisoned, but most have moved on. Had the South been allowed to secede, this shiat probably would have continued a lot longer.

WTF are you talking about? The Japanese attacked us first in WWII. That's what really got us involved. Hitler was allied with them. Nevermind the fact that it was morally reprehensible that we hadn't gotten involved more with the war before that. Hitler slaughtered millions and likely would have taken over most of the European mainland, Britain, and more if we hadn't joined the war. You cannot possibly be stupid enough to think FDR was wrong to fight. Now once the fighting was joined, the draft was necessary. It was total war. Our military manpower was no ways near sufficient without a draft.

Oh, the Germans did quite a bit of attacking on the United States as well. German U-boats were essentially hiding in and around harbors all along the eastern seaboard, sinking transports that were attempting to ferry supplies to the UK (under the Lend-Lease Act). The Germans were attacking the US long before the Japanese did. The only thing was, in wasn't public knowledge that the Germans were doing it, because the US was still trying to cling to isolationist policy.

You're joking, right? He ran on a specific platform, accomplished all he set out to do and then retired. I can't think of a more effective and efficient President than that.

First, setting superficially major goals and accomplishing them doesn't make one an effective President. In fact, Texas statehood (we could go all day about what a good idea that was) required no effort of Polk at all; once Tyler saw the people wanted Texas enough to put Polk into office, he took it. "One down, three to go and I haven't even gotten to the White House!" said Polk, prancing merrily in his backyard where he thought no one could see, but they could.

As for the other three, he didn't get "Fifty-four Forty or fight" in Oregon, he started a massive war in order to get California and the desert states (which if we're going to give all this credit to FDR by putting ourselves in his shoes in his time, maybe we can question the obsession with Manifest Destiny to the point that you conquer a bunch of desert without the technology to live there reasonably?). An independent treasury (which the country desperately wanted after it was abolished only four years earlier) and lowered tariffs constitute a domestic agenda the scale of which has yet to be seen because it's so damn pathetic to think the man needed to pass one bill of consequence in his entire term to show you his effectiveness. Oh, and he didn't retire because "'Ehhhhh,' Polk said, slapping the dust from his pantaloons and smiling, 'my work, it's done here...'" but because "'Ehhhhh,' Polk sighed, dying one-hundred odd days later."

The only reason Polk gets these votes are because it's being discussed by a bunch of dorks and dorks listen to They Might Be Giants and dorks think that They Might Be Giants are funny to use as actual arguments.

The Harrison contingent (some haven't specified, but I'm assuming no Benjamin) I can respect because of their anarchic tendencies and joy at seeing a President perish, traits I too share.

I can't believe the George Washington apologists in this thread. The man was a useless figurehead for eight years (under the Articles of Confederation, the whole government was powerless, despite his Federalist tendencies) and the best thing he ever did was quit (yeah yeah precedent schmecedent. Everything he did was by definition precedent, just because he happened to be the first).

GW's been glorified for centuries because there was no American mythos -- same reason we have these fantasies of cowboys and Paul Bunyan. Most of what he actually accomplished was for the purpose of benefitting slavery (why do you think the Capitol is in the South?) You idiots are all probably still taking Weems's biography seriously--or worse, don't know what came from it and what didn't.

Another thing gang, FDR essentially cut-off the oil for Japan before Pearl Harbor, guaranteeing that Japan would have to strike out aggresively to secure more supplies.

I don't understand the argument that FDR was a warmonger because he didn't provide material support to genociding fascists. I also don't understand how providing support to the British so they could fend off attacks on our merchant vessels is a warmongering act. In fact, it seems that the arguments for FDR being a warmonger are the same made in his day, only by people who put "America First", and liked their red white and blue with a swastika. Not helping a dickhole is not grounds for war, and biatching when someone fights back (not even fight back! Just providing support!) over you sinking their ships is a little retarded.

Hang On VoltaireThroughout the New Deal era, the median annual unemployment rate was 17.2 percent. At no point during the 1930s did unemployment go below 14 percent. Although there was episodic recovery, the 1937 peak for per capita output was lower than the previous peak in 1929. And the 1937 peak was followed by a crash."

I see a graph further down that shows unemployment going down under FDR, the opposite of what it did under Hoover.

I also don't really see much of an alternative than the mantra, 'The free market should have been allowed to do its thing' from the anti-FDR folks here, either.

Cansomeone...I don't really study the depression, so am not qualified to explain this, but here goes- FDRs dumb collectivist policies prolonged and worsened greatly the depression. Only ONE example, is his 'farm' policies included having farmers plow crops under and leave crops to rot (kind of like idiotic farm policies of today), to "increase" produce prices, at a time when Americans were literally starving DUE TO A FRIKIN DEPRESSION!

Let's see. Farm prices were so low farmers were going out of business left and right. The free market had four years in which to respond to worsening conditions. Instead, people in the cities were unable to buy the food they needed, since there were no jobs in the cities.

Instead, by 1933 (you know, when FDR took office) we had an abundance of food in the countryside and an abundance of starving people in the cities. Where were you, O Free Market? Where were you, O Invisible Hand, between 1929 and 1933? Did you disappear? Maybe you were off helping the Invisible Man relieve himself? Could you not accomplish the simple task of getting food to the cities, and ensuring that food producers did not themselves go broke?

Who is apologizing for dictators? (answer- all you FDR/Stalin fans thaz who)

Equating FDR, the four-times elected President of the US, with Josef Stalin, a bloody dictator that even Lenin realized was a madman. Wow. Just wow.

As for your blind admiration of the Founding Fathers, every single one was a politician. Likewise, feel free to defend how Jefferson and Madison fought undeclared wars against the Barbary States, and how Alexander Hamilton (he of the Federalist Papers) was a Real Libertarian. I'm waiting.

Round up those three despots and the total of all the people they killed isn't half of what Stalin killed.

So that makes it all right then! We should have just allowed the Axis powers to run wild through Europe, Asia and the Pacific!

It's easy to point fingers at the monsters of the past, and act superior, but FDR kidnapped American boys against their will, and sent them abroad/killed them. in search of monsters to destroy.

Zip foreward to today- Do you think Saddam was a monster?

Compared to the Axis powers? No.

Did you rush off and volunteer to fight him? (nope? hmmmm)

Nope, I didn't. Iraq had not attacked the US, and was in no danger of taking over such a large part of the world that the continued existence of the US as a peaceful nation would have been in doubt.

You can cite Switzerland as an example of neutrality working, but how free were they, really, during World War II?

Was Japan justified in attacking Pearl Harbor?

Was the US justified in attacking Afghanistan? (not Iraq)

DasWiggyWant to know why we're an aggressive nation now instead of a nice, peaceful country?

patrick767A hundred years later many of these backwards ass farks in the South still thought it was okay to treat an entire race like shiat.

During the last 50 years, Northerners have shown their capacity for hate was as boundless and irrational as their Southern brothers. During the last 25 years, Europeans showed their capacity for racial hate was as great as great as Americans.

A neutral nation can trade with either, neither or both sides of a war.

The US decided to impose an embargo against Japan due to its waging aggressive war in China and Southeast Asia. I'm not really sure how this is a legitimate casus belli for Japan, especially considering that they were engaged in an illegal, aggressive war in East Asia that makes GWB look like an angel, both in terms of scope and in terms of civilians murdered.

For those who think Reagan should be considered among the top U.S. presidents, let me remind you that it was Reagan who gave $$$ and weapons (including anthrax) to Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. And how can you forget about the Iran-Contra affair??

LorelleI still haven't figured out why we had to launder money and sell weapons to the very same people that declare 'Death to America' every Friday. Couldn't we have found another country to help us out, like maybe Zaire, South Africa or even Pakistan?

Ugg. I don't even know how to respond. FDR didn't get us out of the Great Depression, he prolonged it. Briefly, he turned the government into one enormous firm with all his vertical and horizontal integration, ignoring the efficient market mechanisms already in place. One easily forgets that the "invisible hand" only works when the government sets up the right infrastructure and rather than fixing what was there he took it in the wrong direction. There are natural cycles to the economy, but the made the downslide and climb back up much harder than they had to be.

Please don't use the fact that FDR is still praised as evidence of how great he was unless you don't attach a positive or negative connotation to that word. Stalin was certainly great, though in a terrible way. To this day florists sell out of flowers around the anniversary of his death and people still cry to mourn him.

As for the list of greatest presidents posted here repeatedly: was that a poll driven list?I cant believe that Jackson rank so high. If FDR had so called knocks in his record, Jackson was worse.He was an ethnic cleaner. Blew his nose on the supreme court and the constitution when he forcibly removed illegaly the five civilized tribes.Jefferson nearly destroyed the economy with his embago act. During which and the suceeding adminstration, the north actually thought about leaving the union.I admire both these great americans, there flaws and all,but FDR ranks higher than either.

Evolutionary Thinker:Your right, he didnt get us out of the Depression.He did gave the people, those who returned him to office four times by massive margin, HOPE, what ever the flaws of the actual policy.WWII righted the economy. It also proved that FDR was on the right track economicly, but did not take it far enough.

FDR didn't get us out of the Great Depression, he prolonged it. Briefly, he turned the government into one enormous firm with all his vertical and horizontal integration, ignoring the efficient market mechanisms already in place. One easily forgets that the "invisible hand" only works when the government sets up the right infrastructure and rather than fixing what was there he took it in the wrong direction.

Yeah, "invisible hand".

You can really see that "invisible hand" working hard in the unemployment figures(12:17:41 PM) for 1929, 1930, 1931, and 1932, before Roosevelt took office. And he "took it in the wrong direction" hence the unemployment figures went up after he took office, except that they didn't.

'What about 1938?' you may respond, to which I point out that 19% is less than 24.9% in most systems of mathematics I am familiar with.

Evolutionary ThinkerHow are you blaming FDR for making the downslide worse? He wasn't even in office until 1933, and you can't really say his policies took place until 1934.

The economy (and our society in general) is like one of those giant Earth Balls you might have played with in elementary or middle school (basically they are like 6' or 8' in diameter and the team has to push the ball towards the other team's goal). You have the forces of politics, market participants and foreign influences all trying to push the ball closer towards their corner, but no one's going to ever really move very quickly.)

"In 1960, when John F. Kennedy launched his bid for the White House, there were many, my parents among them, who believed that a Catholic was unfit to serve as America's leader; that all Catholics were in thrall to their puppet master in Rome: the Pope; that they were intellectually ill-equipped for anything more than brutish manual labor and the hollow re-creation of excessive devotion to the superstitious hocus-pocus of their beloved Mother Church.

"Irish Catholics in particular were regarded as drunkards and loutish potato eaters who, given half a chance, would sooner spend their last dime in the neighborhood saloon than buy food for their drooling simpleton of a wife and her innumerable brood of squalling infants, each one an unwelcome addition to the Pope's legions of brainless drones.

"That was then.

"Now, in 1999, only Arabs are held in the sort of contempt once reserved for Catholics, Jews, and Communists. It will still be many years before America has its first Arab president but I hope I am alive to see that day. Also, I think it will be a long time before we see a Hispanic president. Also, blacks."

farbles wrote:I cannot believe the demonizing of FDR. Has education in the U.S. slipped so much that you all really truly believe that Ronald Reagan was a better president? Are you all out of your minds??

He was elected to four successive terms and died in office. He gave the grandfathers of you smug revisionist bastards his very all and wore himself out to death with the strain.

How *farkING* ungrateful can you get?

I don't think education in the US is all that bad. It's the lure of a big audience on the cheap that brings out the screwballs. ( Kind of like the nutjobs who call C-SPAN.)

Reminds me of the quotation : "What monstrosities would walk the streets if some people's faces were as unfinished as their minds."

It figures that the headline would bring out the wingnuts in all their frothing frenzy.

Since the Enlightenment, the forces of reason, balanced by the forces of faith (*) have propelled human society forwards and have improved the standard of living for millions around the world even as the world's population increases to levels unimagined in 400 AD (when Saint Jerome said Europe was dangerously overcrowded!)

(*) Remember, it was the religious wackos that were behind abolition of slavery, that were opposed to eugenics and other noxious ideas of the late 19th/early 20th century, etc.

I seem to be the only person here who likes both FDR and Reagan.

Both took economies that were going down the toilet and improved things.

Both engineered defeats of massive empires whose existence was enough to imperil the continued freedom of the US.

Both restored some degree of hope to America.

It'll be the Democrats' turn to do that soon. I think with peak oil and its attendant ills, and the continued rise of Islamic theocracy, we will be needing this hope.

FDR restored the faith America had in our financial institutions. No telling how many markets, banks, companies, etc. would have collapsed if FDR hadn't stepped in. If he didn't do anything, captitalism in America would've failed.

I haven't read much about these tax increases, but please provide me with some links. If I could guess, I'd say he taxed the top income levels (the ones not terribly affected by the Depression) in order to pay for massive public works projects that provided jobs for Americans that just wouldn't have been there otherwise.

All I know is that if FDR didn't end the Depression, he kept America's head above water until WWII did.

No telling how many markets, banks, companies, etc. would have collapsed if FDR hadn't stepped in. If he didn't do anything, captitalism in America would've failed.

One third of all banks in America failed between 1930 and 1933. If you were a depositor in those banks, your money was gone, and you still had to feed your family and clothe and shelter them.

The conservatives hate FDR as a "traitor to his class", but they were as clueless as the aristocracy in France before 1789, and would likely have suffered the same fate had not FDR turned things around and given hope to despairing people.

You see, we Americans don't like to think. Look around at our politics and schools and social discourse!

Speak for yourself. Just wondering where many of the revolutionary inventions of the 20th century came from if Americans can't stand thinking so much. Maybe I'll go make a list of them to make it easier for you...

Nope, you're not the only one. I'm with you on that. Reagan and FDR were both good presidents, imo. However, in both cases, I think we are still paying for some of their mistakes. With FDR, I think some of his domestic agenda was necessary at the time, but is hurting us now, and with Reagan, I think some of his foreign policy agenda was necessary at the time, but hurting us now. Both, though, were the perfect presidents for their time. America has a lucky habit of having great men step in and clean up the messes of their crappy predecessors.

I don't think either was the best president though. I'd have to go with George Washington. Any man who turns down a crown when offered, and is not so self-important to give up the presidency after a reasonable amount of time, even though everyone begged him to stay on, is an honorable man in my book. Read his farewell address sometime. He warned us against nearly every problem we face today, particularly about blind party loyalty.

Speak for yourself. Just wondering where many of the revolutionary inventions of the 20th century came from if Americans can't stand thinking so much. Maybe I'll go make a list of them to make it easier for you...

Hmm.

Did you know who John Hanson was before I pointed him out to FakePlasticAlex?

Face it, anti-intellectualism has a long history in America. That's why the myth of the "common man" is so popular here, and the main reason why more than a few individuals have been elected to high office (that, plus efficient party machines working for them).

Socialism in Britain came in (properly) during 1945.From 1945 to the early eighties, with the exception due to the baby boom, Britain's economic might collapsed. The reasons for this can be put at the feet of socialism. The nationalisation of the industries, particularly British Leyland led to their absolute collapse. The tax rates rose massively, making us internationally uncompetitive until Nigel Lawson brought them back to good levels in 1987, so that we could pay for the burgeoning state.Socialism breaks Anglo-Saxon free market economies. The French and Germans can handle it, because they are used to an overpowering government. But the Anglo Saxon economies are based upon the work of eccentric gamblers. And when you have people creaming off your winnings, you aren't going to gamble so much as the profit isn't there.

Almost all of Europe fell to Fascism and other anti-democratic forces during the Great Depression. The Republicans response to the crises at the time was isolationism and misplaced faith in the very economic system which had utterly collapsed.

Roosevelt was very popular because had demostrated an urge to solve the problems the unregulated "free-market" did not solve, double-digit unemployment, and a loss of faith by a large segment of the population in the instituions of our society.